Kite arrangement and method of construction

ABSTRACT

A kite is made by cutting its wing and tail members from a thin sheet of polystyrene foam. The wing is secured to a longitudinal spar with the tie wires and the tail members are tied to a tail boom with tie wires. The tail boom is connected to the longitudinal spar with a connector member. A three point bridle is connected to two laterally spaced tie plates on the wing member and to the longitudinal spar near the back portion of the wing member.

United States Patent 1191 Dec. 17, 1974 Lindenbaum 1 KITE ARRANGEMENT AND METHOD OF CONSTRUCTION [76] Inventor: Bernard Lindenbaum, 4929 Thorain Ct., Dayton, Ohio 45416 22 Filed: May 7, 1973 [21] Appl. No.: 357,568

52 us. 01. 244/154 [51] Int. Cl. B64c 31/06 [58] Field of Search 244/153 R, 154, 155 R, 244/D1G. 1; 46/79 [56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,568,319 1/1926 Cogswell 46/79 2,097,538 11/1937 Taylor 244/154 2,298,400 '10/1942 McCoy 244/154 2,751,172 6/1956 Rogallo et a1 244/153 R 2,767,436 10/1956 'Noland et a1. 244/154 UX 3,022,966 2/1962 Briggs 244/154 3,076,626 2/1963 Andrews.... 244/154 FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS 404,525 12/1909 France 244/154 1,200,493 12/1959 France 244/153 R 1,215,842 4/1960 France 244/154 Primary Examiner-Trygve M. Blix Assistant ExaminerPaul E. Sauberer Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Harry A. Herbert, Jr.; Richard J. Killoren 57 ABSTRACT portion of the wing member.

4 Claims, 7 Drawing Figures KITE ARRANGEMENT AND METHOD OF CONSTRUCTION RIGHTS OF THE GOVERNMENT There is reserved to the Government of the United BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Some forms of kites offer a means to economically lift loads to high altitudes at relatively steep angles to the ground.

These loads may be such items as radio antennas,v

sensor devices, signaling devices or otherv such equipment. Kites are also useful in locating and rescuing downed flight personnel.

, For such uses, low cost, light weight kites of simple construction with high flight. efficiency areneeded. Kites made of a plastic foam material are useful for this purpose since they avoid surface deformations which are detrimental to lifting efficiency. The patents to Koonce et al., US. Pat. Nos. 3,1 l0,460, Teague Jr., 3,l28,974 and Ventre, 3,284,033 show kites so constructed. Prior art kites made of plastic foam material are vacuum formed or molded. Kites made in this manner usually have a thickness in excess of one-half inch and have a rigid construction. While low density materials can be used, the overall weight is high because it is difficult to make thin kites in this manner.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION structed. Commercially available thin sheets ofplastic third point of attachment is at the longitudinal spar 14 near the rear portion of the wing member.

The tail assembly has a horizontal tail. member 24 and a vertical tail member 26.

The kite is made by providing a cutting die to cut the wing member 12 and the tail members 24 and 26 from a single piece of plastic foam material, as shown in FIG. 3. The cutting die may be made to form the tie wire holes 28 and bridle holes 29 in the wing and tail members at the same time that the wing and tail members are cut.

After cutting, the wing member 12 is secured to longitudinal spar 14 by means of tie wires 3 2. The tie wires may be plastic or paper coated wires. The tail boom 18 is secured to the'longitudinal spar l4 by means of a means such as lock pins.

The tail members 24 and 26 are secured to the tail boom 18 by means of tie wires 34. The three point bridle is connected to the kite with two lines being connected to the plates 16 and the third line being connected to the longitudinal spar at 36. The kite line 37 is then connected to the bridle at 38. In flight, the edges of the wings are bent upward by the wind load, as shown in FIGS. 4 and 5. The bridle lines connected to bars 16 control the bending deflection distribution of the kite under flight loads. I

While the kite has been described as having'the wing and tail members attached by means of tie wires, other means could also be used, such as an adhesive or wire I staples. In this case, holes 28 need not be stamped in foam material are ideal for this purpose. The wing and tail structure are cut from this material. A longitudinal spar is secured to the wing member and the tail members are securedto a tail boom which is connected to the longitudinal spar. The bridle is connected at three points on the kite to minimize the bending loads in the kite. a

IN THE DRAWINGS FIG. 6 shows a modified structure for the wing member for the device of FIG. 1.

FIG. 7 shows a-further embodiment of the wing member for the device of FIG. 1.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Reference is now made to FIG. 1. of the drawing which shows a kite 10 having a wing member 12, 8 Ion-' gitudinal spar '14, bridle attachment bars 16, a tail boom 18 and the tail assembly 20. A bridle 22, shown in FIGS. 2, 4 and 5, has three attachment points. Two of the attachment points are at the bridle attachment bars 16, which are laterally spaced from the spar 14 near the forward portion of the wing member, and the the wing and ,tail members.

In one device constructed, the wing and tail members were cut from commercially available polystyrene foam sheets having a thickness of one-tenth inch and a density of 4 pounds per cubic foot. The wing was about 20 inch diameter. The longitudinal spar and tail boom were wood with a square cross section about onefourth inch on a side. The bars 16 were wood about one-fourth inch wide, 2 inches longand one-sixteenth inch thick. The wing and tail members were tied to the longitudinal spar and tailboom with conventional flat paper covered wire such as used to tie plastic bags.

While the plastic foam material described" above may be used without lateral support with wing span up to about 2 feet, wings with larger spanwill need some lateral support as shown in FIG. 6. In -this device, the kite is the same as in FIGS. 1 and 2 except that lateral spars 40 and 41 are provided to give additional lateral strength. Spars 40 and 41 are secured to the wing member 12 by means of tie wires 44 and 45.'In this case, the bridle 22 istied to the lateral spar 40. v v

For kites with a wing span of about 4 feet or more, greater strength will be required for the wing member.

- In this case, a sandwich type member as shown in FIG.

7 may be provided. In the device of FIG. 7, a plastic foam layer 47 is located between two load bearing layers 49 and 50.

Commercially available high impact .sheet, having polystyrene foam between'layers of paper or polystyrene foam between polystyrene plastic sheet'may be used. Also, the sandwich material could be A inch polystyrene foam sheets between layers of fiberglass of a thickness about one-thousandth inch. The fiberglass may be attached to the foam with an adhesive, such as an epoxy glue. While the sandwich material has been described for use with large span wings, for some applications it may be desirable to use if for smaller span wings.

While the circular wing structure is shown, other shapes could be used, such as elliptical or rectangular. Also, for some applications the longitudinal spar and tail boom could be made in one piece so that the connector would not be needed.

There is thus provided a low cost, light weight kite of simple construction with high flight efficiency.

I claim:

l. A kite, comprising: a flexible wing member of plastic foam material having a thickness less than three eighths inch; a longitudinal spar secured to said wing member by means of tie wires; a horizontal tail member and a vertical tail member spaced from said wing member; means for connecting the horizontal tail member and the vertical tail member to said longitudinal spar;

a bridle having three lines which meet to form a subpoints laterally spaced from the longitudinal spar; said means for securing two of said lines to the forward portion of the wing member including a pair of bridle attachment bars, extending a predetermined distance over the surface of the wing member; means for-connecting the third line to thelongitudinal spar adjacent the rear portion of the wing member anda kite line connected to the bridle at the intersection of said three bridle lines.

plastic foam material with an adhesive. 

1. A kite, comprising: a flexible wing member of plastic foam material having a thickness less than three-eighths inch; a longitudinal spar secured to said wing member by means of tie wires; a horizontal tail member and a vertical tail member spaced from said wing member; means for connecting the horizontal tail member and the vertical tail member to said longitudinal spar; a bridle having three lines which meet to form a substantially Yshaped bridle; means for securing two of said lines to the forward portion of the wing member at points laterally spaced from the longitudinal spar; said means for securing two of said lines to the forward portion of the wing member including a pair of bridle attachment bars, extending a predetermined distance over the surface of the wing member; means for connecting the third line to the longitudinal spar adjacent the rear portion of the wing member and a kite line connected to the bridle at the intersection of said three bridle lines.
 2. The device as recited in claim 1 including a plurality of spaced lateral spars connected to said wing by means of tie wires.
 3. The device as recited in claim 1 including a load bearing layer secured to the top and the bottom of said plastic foam material.
 4. The device as recited in claim 3 wherein said load bearing layers are layers of fiberglass secured to the plastic foam material with an adhesive. 